History of Gambling Bans in Asia

Why gambling bans in Asia go back centuries

Governments across Asia have been banning gambling for as long as there have been governments interested in public morals, public order, or simply in keeping money out of the hands of professional gamblers. The pattern repeats across the region:

• A game spreads among the population.
• Authorities decide it has gone too far.
• A prohibition follows.
• A narrow exception is carved out for something the state wants to keep, usually racing or a lottery whose proceeds serve a public purpose.

India is a good example of how long this history runs. The Public Gambling Act was passed in 1867 with a view to regulating and discouraging gambling on games of chance, and it restricted most forms of gambling while singling out games of pure chance such as Satta, which it made illegal⁶. That single colonial-era law still shapes what is legal in much of India today.

Japan shows the same cycle even more clearly. Gambling there has been banned, permitted, banned again and then allowed in narrow channels, over a span of more than a thousand years. The bans were never quite permanent, and the exceptions never quite became a free market. If you want to understand why gambling in Asia looks the way it does, with state lotteries, public racing monopolies and tightly limited casinos, the history of these bans is where it begins. For the broader attitudes behind the rules, see why many Asian countries restrict gambling.

Japan: racing and betting from the imperial court to the shogunate era

The recorded history of racing in Japan can be traced as far back as 701 A.D., during the reign of the Emperor Mommu¹. Racing at the imperial court was a ceremonial and military exercise as much as a sport, and it long predates any form of organized betting.

Gambling itself was another matter. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, gambling was repeatedly prohibited, and professional gamblers, the bakuchiuchi, operated in the gaps the bans could not close. The shogunate's attitude set a template that later governments followed: gambling was treated as a social harm to be suppressed, not an activity to be licensed and taxed. Feudal punishments for gamblers were severe, and some of the yakuza organizations that still exist today trace their origins to bakuto gambling groups from this era, a story covered in which yakuza groups descended from bakuto gambling organizations.

Lotteries followed a similar path. Following the ban imposed in 1842 during the Tenpo Reforms, the general sale of lottery tickets remained prohibited for 103 years². That single measure, part of a broad reform program, kept Japanese lotteries off the legal market for over a century. You can read more about the earlier temple lottery ban in when temple lotteries (tomikuji) were banned in Japan.

The austerity of the Second World War brought the strictest phase of all: gambling was completely prohibited and severely punished³. Wartime Japan had no room for wagering of any kind, and the ban of that period was enforced with a seriousness that earlier edicts had not always matched.

Colonial-era racing: how Western racing took root in Yokohama

Western-style horse racing entered Japan in 1861, toward the end of the era of the Tokugawa Shogunate, when a race was conducted in Yokohama under the auspices of the Yokohama Race Club, formed by foreign residents¹. The foreigners who came to live in the treaty ports brought their racing culture with them, and the racecourses they built became the seed of the modern Japanese racing industry.

The next step was betting. In 1888, the Japan Racing Club, formerly the Yokohama Race Club, put one-dollar betting tickets on sale for its club-sponsored races in Yokohama, the first time betting tickets were sold in Japan¹. This was a club affair, run by and for the foreign community and wealthy Japanese enthusiasts, but it established the idea that a day at the races could involve a wager.

That idea spread quickly. Racing clubs across the country adopted betting tickets, and the betting frenzy that followed is what eventually provoked the backlash of 1908. The colonial-era racing world of old Shanghai and Hong Kong followed a parallel track, which you can read about in the history of horse racing and betting in old Shanghai and Happy Valley Racecourse, Hong Kong's first racetrack.

The 1908 betting ticket ban and the years without legal betting

By the early 1900s, betting tickets were on sale at racecourses across Japan, and the public response was more than the government had bargained for. A public and media outcry built against the betting frenzy and the overt involvement of the bakuchiuchi, the professional gamblers who moved in wherever money was wagered³. The government's answer was to enact legislation in 1908 once again prohibiting the sale of betting tickets³.

The ban did not kill racing. Horse racing continued through what became known as the era of subsidy horse racing, a period in which the sport was sustained without legal wagering income. Racing survived, but without the betting crowds, and the racing authorities spent the following years looking for a way to bring betting back under control rather than abolish it.

That law of 1908 turned out to be one of the most consequential gambling measures in Japanese history. It was still on the books decades later, and it was identified as one of the main obstacles to introducing casinos into Japan, since any casino proposal had to deal with how to get around the 1908 prohibition³. The ban on betting tickets was eventually reversed in 1923, but the wider prohibition it belonged to shaped Japanese gambling law into the 21st century.

Here is the full arc of Japan's bans and reversals at a glance:

The Racing Law of 1923: betting legal again, with conditions

Fifteen years after the 1908 ban, Japan found a formula for bringing betting back: strict conditions and a public purpose. The Horse Racing Act of 1923, Act No. 47, legalized the sale of betting tickets once more, but only through authorized racing bodies and only in prescribed forms⁷. The principle behind it was simple and has never changed since. In the words of the National Diet Library's own account, "gambling is prohibited by law, but public racing is permitted as an exception on the premise of social contribution"⁵. A share of betting revenue flows back to the public, and that is what makes the exception acceptable.

The 1923 act did not last in its original form. The current Horse Racing Act, Act No. 158 of July 13, 1948, abolished the Horse Racing Act of 1923, the Act Concerning Temporary Exceptions to the Horse Racing Act of 1939, the Regional Horse Racing Act of 1946 and the Betting Tax Act of 1942, replacing them all with a single framework⁷. Under the 1948 law, only the Japan Racing Association, prefectures and designated municipalities may hold horse racing⁷. The law is listed in Annexed Table No. 2 of the National Diet Library Act as the statute governing the National Association of Racing⁸.

The 1948 law also introduced government control in place of the old Japan Racing Society⁹. In 1954, the enactment of the Japan Racing Association Law established the Japan Racing Association, the JRA, making provision for both national racing and the legalization and operation of regional public racing³. The JRA was established in 1954 by the enactment of that law to take over horse racing that had been run under direct government control⁹. Ban-ei draft horse racing, the heavy-horse sport unique to Hokkaido, inaugurated its organized racing system in 1946 and has continued to the present⁹.

The conditions attached to the exception still bite. Betting on horse racing would normally constitute the crime of gambling under Penal Code Article 185, but it is authorized by the Horse Racing Act as a special law; if you bet by any method other than those prescribed in the special law, the crime of gambling is established¹⁰. Even people engaged in horse racing affairs may not buy betting tickets under the Horse Racing Act¹⁰. Today Japan has 25 racecourses in total, 10 run by the JRA and 15 by local governments, and four of them conduct night races¹.

Mainland China: prohibition since 1949 and its two legal lotteries

Mainland China took a different route: a total prohibition that has never been lifted. When the People's Republic was founded in 1949, gambling was outlawed, and it remains prohibited by Chinese laws and regulations today¹¹. There are no gambling regulators in China of the kind you find in Britain or Malta, because there is no licensed gambling market to regulate¹².

The single exception is lotteries. The State Council has granted special authorization for two lotteries, the welfare lottery and the sports lottery⁴. The China Sports Lottery began national unified issuance in 1994¹³. Everything else is closed off:

• Issuing or selling lotteries other than the welfare and sports lotteries without State Council authorization is prohibited¹⁴.
• Foreign lotteries are banned from issuance and sale within the People's Republic of China¹⁵.
• Unauthorized sale of lottery via the internet is also resolutely prohibited¹⁶.

The result is a market with exactly two legal gambling products, both state-run, both sold through physical terminals, and both framed as fundraising for public causes rather than gambling. It is the same principle Japan used in 1923, taken to its fullest extent: no private gambling at all, and only the narrowest state-controlled channel.

Enforcement in practice: fines, blacklists and capital controls in China

The prohibition in China is enforced, and the enforcement reaches players as well as operators. In Beijing, providing conditions for gambling for profit, or participating in gambling with relatively large stakes where the conduct is not serious enough for criminal punishment, is punished under the Public Security Administration Punishments Law¹⁷. State functionaries who participate in gambling are treated as a more serious category¹⁸. People who gamble online face hefty fines and imprisonment as risks that go along with the activity¹².

Online football betting is treated as a criminal matter outright. Organizing, acting as an agent for, or participating in online football betting constitutes the crimes of opening a gambling house or gambling, and is pursued with administrative or even criminal liability¹⁹. Money lost in online football betting is not protected by law and cannot be recovered¹⁹, which means gambling debts and losses have no legal remedy.

Foreigners residing in China face an additional layer: they can be blacklisted and banned from entry for 10 years¹². The regulation of gaming machines points in the same direction, forbidding gaming machines and devices from having gambling functions²⁰. There are no official channels of support for people experiencing gambling-related harms, because the market is not regulated¹². For what a visitor can actually do today, see can I gamble in China?.

Legal exceptions: what Japan permits today despite the default ban

Japan's modern system rests on the same default rule as China's, with far more exceptions. Gambling is prohibited by law in Japan, but public racing is permitted as an exception on the premise of social contribution⁵. That covers the four public racing sports, each run by authorized bodies with a share of revenue directed to public purposes:

• Horse racing, under the JRA and local governments¹
• Boat race⁵
• Auto race⁵
• Bicycle race⁵

Betting within these channels is tightly proceduralized. Win betting tickets can be purchased until 2 minutes before the start time of the race¹⁰. If a refund is made at boat race due to a false start or another problem, you simply insert your ticket into the betting machine to get your money back¹⁰. Damaged tickets may be voided, so handle them carefully¹⁰. On the tax side, only the cost of the winning ticket counts as a directly necessary expense against occasional income, and the National Tax Agency has confirmed that refunds on local racing betting tickets fall under circumstances corresponding to chance¹⁰. Race organizers keep purchase histories, and information provision to national institutions may become useful or necessary for gambling addiction countermeasures¹⁰.

Lotteries returned as well, after the 103-year ban ended². The sports promotion lottery, toto, operates under the Act on Sports Promotion Voting, which provides for refunding the purchase price to holders of eligible tickets when a designated match is canceled¹⁰. Sales are sometimes suspended briefly to finalize match cards and secure a preparation period for sales¹⁰. Pachinko sits in its own category, technically a game of skill rather than gambling; Japan had more than 16,000 pachinko parlors taking in an astonishing 30 trillion yen, nearly 300 billion dollars, in bets at the peak count³. For the full picture of what you can play today, see can I gamble in Japan?.

Casino resorts: why Japan still has none open

Casinos are the one form of gambling Japan has never opened. Proposals for the introduction of casinos have been hotly debated since 2001, led by Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, but no casinos were established³. The 1908 law prohibiting gambling was one of the main issues any proposal had to circumvent³.

The breakthrough in principle came with the integrated resort legislation: casino business is prohibited under the Penal Code, and is exceptionally permitted as a privilege under the IR Development Law²¹. In other words, the default ban stays in place, and each casino is a carved-out exception granted as a privilege.

In practice, nothing has opened yet. At Osaka Yumeshima, the certified integrated resort, the casino business is not yet open, so there is no particular implementation report on it at present²². Japan remains a country where the casino question has been debated for a quarter century without a single table game running.

One point of Japanese law is worth knowing if you travel: gambling at casinos abroad is not punishable under Japanese law, since the constitutive acts occur entirely abroad and no Japanese social legal interest is harmed²³. A Japanese national playing legally at a licensed casino overseas commits no offense at home.

What the historic bans do not cover

The historic bans were never airtight, and the gaps they left still shape the region's gambling map.

In India, the 1867 prohibition came with a built-in exception that survives today. Under Section 30 of the Indian Contract Act of 1872, wagering agreements are void and unenforceable but not illegal, and the provision makes an exemption for betting on horse racing, making such bets legally permissible under the Contract Act²⁴. Combined with the view that betting on horse racing is a game of skill rather than chance, racing betting sits outside the ban that covers games like Satta⁶. The colonial bans are the reason horse racing became the one widespread legal betting channel in India, a story that continues in can I gamble in India?.

In Singapore, the modern gambling statute deliberately carves out the casino. Under the Gambling Control Act 2022, Parts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 do not apply to gambling carried on within any casino²⁵, and the Casino Control Act separately governs what happens on the gaming floor, including the rule that a casino operator must not accept wagers made otherwise than by means of money or chips, lend money, or extend credit except as allowed²⁶. The historic pattern repeats: ban the activity in general, then fence off a licensed space with its own rules.

And across all of these systems, the bans never covered everything people actually did. Pachinko in Japan, mahjong in homes and parlors, festival games, wake gambling and temple lotteries all lived in the space between prohibition and enforcement. Some of those traditions are now recognized as cultural heritage, and some, like the games played at Filipino wakes, are covered elsewhere on this site. The bans shaped the industry, but they never quite shaped the culture.